Chapter Thirteen
After nine days, the Sixty-eighth Hunger Games had reached an important milestone; of the twenty-four tributes who had entered the arena, only eight were still alive. From now on, the betting would become increasingly frantic as wealthy Capitol citizens gambled on those who had made it this far, each of them hoping to be on the receiving end of a large windfall for picking the winner, or even which tributes would make the final two. Even those too young to bet for real got in on the act, as the Capitol's schools set up mock betting syndicates, with prizes promised to any students who correctly predicted who the victor would be. Not to mention that it formed a good basis for learning about statistics and probability. If anyone had any qualms about gambling on human lives, they dared not speak out for fear of reprisals and the overwhelming impression was that the Hunger Games were as popular as ever.
Popular in the Capitol, that is. In the districts, people just wanted the Games to be over so they could go about their lives without having to watch their young people die on nationwide TV. That was bad enough, but, in a tradition dating back to the Fourteenth Games, the friends and families of all tributes in the final eight were required to give interviews about those they might never see alive again. They had no choice; participation in the interviews was mandatory, as was watching the resulting programme.
So it was that Silky Bernstein, Dazzle's thirteen-year-old sister, was currently in District 1's Justice Building, talking to a Capitol reporter named Horatia, whose skin had been dyed lavender. Apparently, she thought it looked attractive, though Silky found it hard to believe anyone would find the Capitol's odd fashions pleasing to the eye. And as for dyeing your skin like that, if you were meant to be lavender you would be born that way. But she kept her opinions to herself and concentrated on answering the questions which Horatia put to her.
"So now that her partner is out of the Games, all your district's hopes are riding on your sister. Do you think she'll be able to bring back the crown?"
Silky answered without hesitation. "Yes, I think so. She's been training ever since I can remember and she's real good with a sword. So I'm sure she'll win, no matter who her final opponent is. Even if it's the District 2 boy, she'll find a way to beat him."
"Do you really think she can?"
"I know she can. She'll be wearing the victor's crown soon, you wait and see." Silky did not allow herself to consider the possibility that Dazzle might not win, that the next time she saw her sister might be as a corpse shipped back to District 1 in a wooden box. As a citizen of one of the three Career districts, she had been raised to regard being a tribute as an honour, being a victor even more so. She had to believe that Dazzle could win . . . no, that Dazzle would win. Any other outcome was unthinkable.
"And what would you say was Bellona's greatest strength?"
A blue-haired reporter named Diomedes put this question to Bellona's father, Cassius Maynard, as the two men sat facing each other in a room dominated by paintings of Roman soldiers. Such paintings could be found throughout District 2's Justice Building, a reflection of the district's status as Panem's main military stronghold, a status which afforded it considerable favour with the Capitol. No other district, not even the other Career districts, would have been allowed to get away with such blatant displays of militaristic artwork, but District 2's status meant it was afforded certain privileges the other eleven districts were not. It might officially be the masonry district, but it was widely known, at least in the Capitol, that it was also where Panem's armed forces had been based since the Dark Days and the destruction of District 13.
"I'd have to say determination," Cassius replied. "She's always said she wanted to compete the Games one day and I never doubted that she meant it. In fact," he added, "she wanted to volunteer in her first year."
"And how did you feel about that?" Technically, there was nothing to stop a twelve-year-old from volunteering; the only restrictions on volunteers were that they had to be eligible for the reaping and had to be the same gender as the person they were replacing as tribute. But, in nearly seventy years, no tribute that young had gone into the arena as a volunteer, not least because most volunteers came from the Career districts, where kids were expected to wait until they were at least fifteen years old before putting themselves forward. There was Finnick Odair from District 4 who'd volunteered for, and gone on to win, the Sixty-fifth Games at the age of fourteen, but he was very much the exception to the rule.
"Naturally, my wife and I had to forbid it. She - Bellona, that is - was far too young, so we told her she should wait awhile, that she would have more chance if she was older and had a few more years of training under her belt." Cassius recalled how he and his wife, Aquila, had argued with their headstrong daughter, how they had pointed out that no twelve- or thirteen-year-old tributes had ever won the Games. Bellona had tried to counter this by saying that just because it hadn't happened yet didn't mean it never would, but Cassius and Aquila stood firm and she was eventually forced to accept that she wasn't going to be a tribute for at least another three years.
This year, however, Bellona's time had come. Cassius had watched with a feeling of paternal pride as his little girl (though, at 5'8", Bellona could hardly be described as little) took her place on the stage, finally fulfilling her lifelong wish to enter the Games. He had not allowed himself to think about the fact that, even for a District 2 tribute, victory was not guaranteed and neither had Bellona, whose last words to her parents had been a bold assertion that they were looking at the future victor of the Sixty-eighth Hunger Games.
It was rare for District 2 not to have at least one tribute in the final eight; more often than not, both of them made it that far. So, as on most previous occasions, the Capitol had dispatched two reporters to 2, the one assigned to interview the friends and family of the male tribute being a woman named Lysithea, who liked to dress as a fairy. More than dress as a fairy, in fact; she'd had her ears surgically altered to give them an elfin point and her gossamer wings had been implanted in her upper back. Add to that the fact that her clothes were made from a floaty material which sparkled when the light caught it and one could easily believe she was some kind of magical being. But. for all she looked like a character from a children's story, she took her job as a Capitol reporter seriously and, right now, she was in the middle of interviewing Lupus's girlfriend, Augusta Pitt.
"So how long have you and Lupus been, as they say, an item?" asked Lysithea.
"Well, we've known each other since we were kids; we attend . . ." Augusta quickly checked herself, then switched tenses. "We attended the Training Academy. You know, for the Games." There was no harm in talking about District 2's training programme for future tributes; it was an open secret throughout Panem, as were the corresponding programmes in Districts 1 and 4. "But we only got together two years ago," she added, quickly steering her answer back in the direction of Lysithea's question. "My brother had died in the Games - one of those polar bear mutts got him - and Lupus came to comfort me at the funeral. We'd always been friends, but as he stood there with his arm around me, something just . . . clicked between us. We started going out soon after."
"And how did you feel when he stepped up to volunteer?"
"Proud." Not that there was anything else Augusta could say; District 2 had embraced the philosophy of the Games so wholeheartedly that anyone who was not eager to volunteer, or did not support those who volunteered, risked becoming a pariah in the district. Even if it was your boyfriend putting his life on the line. "And confident that he would be the next victor. He even told me he was going to win for Justin."
"Your brother?" Lysithea noticed how Augusta's voice dropped slightly when she said the name Justin and guessed the reason why, but it wouldn't hurt to confirm it. After all, hundreds of kids had entered the arena over the years, but the ones people remembered tended to be the ones who came out alive; most of the rest were quickly forgotten, except by their grieving friends and families.
Augusta nodded. "Anyway, I know Lupus will come back to me. And," she added, lowering her voice slightly, "I've got a surprise for him when he does. I only found out after the Game began, but . . ." She paused for dramatic effect. ". . . I'm carrying his child." She rested her hand on her stomach, imagining Lupus's reaction when he learned that he was going to be a father, imagining their future together. She might have missed out on the chance to be a tribute, and therefore a victor, herself, but as soon as Lupus got back from the Capitol, she was going to marry him, which meant she would be classed as part of his family and therefore be entitled to live in District 2's Victors' Village. And maybe the child she was expecting would be just the first of many she and Lupus would have together.
First, though, Lupus had to win. And, with only seven other tributes left, one of whom was surprisingly that District 5 boy who'd only scored a three in training, the odds were very much in his favour.
In District 3, Synthia's mother, Megan Gates, was being interviewed by Eurydice, a reporter whose clothes were trimmed with peacock feathers; she even had several fanned out around her collar like the tail of a real peacock, creating a display which was clearly meant to attract attention. Well, it certainly did that. There was no way you could miss someone who wore such an outlandish, not to mention ostentatious, get-up, not that having such a high collar was very practical, especially when combined with high heels. For one thing, you would have to remember to duck whenever you went through a door in order to avoid knocking it askew.
Megan, by contrast, was a plain-looking woman in her early forties, who wore her dark hair in a neat bob and whose face bore the strained expression often seen on the parents of kids from outside the Career districts who made it this far. The expression of a mother who knew she would probably have to bury her daughter, not that Eurydice seemed to care about this. Then again, the Capitol's inhabitants were largely indifferent to the people who lived in the districts, aside from keeping them in line which they did by taking the lion's share of whatever each district's industry produced, though they were slightly more lenient towards the Career districts, and through the deaths of twenty-three young people in the sadistic ritual known as the Hunger Games.
"So how do you feel about your daughter being the first tribute from your district to make the final eight in, what? Ten years?"
"Thirteen." At the Fifty-fifth Hunger Games, a District 3 boy named Daedalus had made it as far as the final three, only to be taken out by the tributes from District 2, who had then fought a long and bloody battle for the crown. Since then, no tribute from 3 had placed higher than ninth - until now. "To answer your question," Megan continued, "part of me's relieved she's made it this far, especially after what happened to her partner. But I also know things are only going to get harder for her from here on, especially with four of the Careers still in the Games. Our tributes aren't particularly good at fighting."
But District 3 tributes were good at using their brains and, given the opportunity, could easily exploit their knowledge of technology. The district's first victor, a boy named Gizmo, had even won the Nineteenth Games by disabling his tracker (which at the time consisted of a bracelet worn around the tribute's wrist) to make it appear that he was dead, then lying low until the field had cleared of all but himself and a District 6 girl called Erica, at which point he killed her before the Gamemakers could declare her the victor. The incident, the second case of cheating in the Games in less than a decade, had caused the Capitol considerable embarrassment and they'd immediately taken steps to make sure no other tributes could fake their own deaths as Gizmo had. From the Twentieth Games onwards, the trackers were injected into the tributes' forearms, making it harder to remove them. The way dead tributes were dealt with was also changed; whereas they had previously been left in the arena until a victor emerged, at which point clean-up teams would move in to collect the bodies, they would now, to make absolutely certain that they were actually dead, be picked up by hovercraft almost immediately after the signal from their trackers ceased. As for Gizmo, his victory was allowed to stand, but the Capitol had his family killed, both to punish him for thinking he could outsmart them and as a warning to others who might have similar ideas.
Since then District 3 had produced three more victors. Beetee, who'd set an electrical trap which had taken out several of his fellow tributes at once. Flexa, who'd thrown flammable liquid at her final opponent, followed by a lit match, then fled the scene as her victim burned to death. Wiress, who'd used her acute powers of observation both to avoid the traps set by the Gamemakers and to lure her fellow tributes into these traps. All of them had one thing in common; they'd used their brains to win. Could Synthia do the same? Megan hoped so, but District 3 had not produced a victor since Wiress, so while Synthia technically still had a chance of getting out of the arena alive, it was a very slight one.
"And how would you rate Fathom's chances of becoming District 4's next victor?" a reporter named Regulus, who sported a bright green goatee, asked Fathom's grandfather, Neptune Wade.
"I reckon they're pretty good," Neptune answered, a wistful expression crossing his wrinkled face as he thought of his grandson. "He's a fine boy and he's shaping up to be an excellent fisherman, plus he can handle himself in a fight. So, as long as he keeps a tight hold on his trident, I'd say the odds are in his favour. In fact, I'd go as far as to say he'll be on his Victory Tour come January."
The people of District 4 had many sayings related to fishing and to the ocean in general, one of which was "don't count the fish until they're landed." Which meant you should never assume what the outcome of something that had yet to be accomplished would be. The Hunger Games were still ongoing and there were no guarantees that Fathom would be the last tribute standing, especially with three of the tributes from Districts 1 and 2 still in the running. Dazzle, Bellona and Lupus might be Fathom's allies for now, but, with the Games down to the final eight, that could change at any time. Not to mention that, even if his fellow Careers didn't get him, he could still fall victim to a Gamemakers' trap, a pack of mutts, or even the remaining non-Careers. Of the latter, the boy from District 5 was the only one who had made any kills so far, two of which had been mercy kills, but there was no telling what a bunch of kids who were desperate to survive a game in which all but one of the players had to die might be capable of doing.
Neptune, however, was not about to give up on Fathom, choosing instead to focus on another District 4 saying: "the tide always returns to shore." Fathom had, like the tide, gone away, but he would return and Neptune was confident that, when he did, it would be as a living victor, not lying lifeless in a wooden box. District 4 might not take the Games as seriously as Districts 1 and 2, but their tributes were still part of the Career alliance, in most years anyway, and that meant they usually had a fairly good chance of emerging as victor.
And, if Fathom won, he would be District 4's second victor in less than five years, as well as the fishing district's tenth victor overall. Of the nine who had brought the crown back to 4 so far, seven were still alive, one male and six females, the former being Fathom's mentor, Finnick Odair. Would District 4 soon have two living male victors? Neptune firmly believed the answer to that question was a resounding yes. After all, Fathom was his grandson.
Like District 3, District 5 had not produced a victor within the lifetime of anyone currently eligible for the Games; indeed, it had been more than a decade since either district even had a tribute in the final eight. So when Paula and Trent Saxon had gone to say goodbye to Dyson after the reaping, they had fully expected it to be the last time they saw their friend alive. Yet here Trent was, in a room in District 5's Justice Building, being interviewed by a reporter called Plato, whose bright red suit matched his hair. Being interviewed about Dyson, the first District 5 tribute to make it this far since a boy named Clyde, who'd placed sixth in the Fifty-seventh Games.
"And were you aware of Dyson's feelings for your sister?"
"Well, the three of us have been friends for years," Trent said in reply to Plato's question. "But, no, I didn't know he fancied her, or anything like that until the night before the Games." He remembered sitting with his parents and Paula, watching as Dyson told the whole of Panem how he had suddenly started to think of Paula as more than a friend, just when they were about to be parted for what would almost certainly be forever.
"And what are your thoughts about this?" was Plato's next question.
"I'll admit it was a surprise to both of us. I mean, we pretty much grew up together, but like I said, I didn't know Dyson had feelings for Paula, as you put it. I thought they saw each other as friends, that her giving him her pendant was a symbol of friendship. But, if there's more to it than that, I'm happy for them, or at least I would be if the circumstances were different." Trent was all too aware that real life was not a fairy tale, especially when it came to the Hunger Games. Dyson's life was in danger every second he was in the arena and, even if he managed to win the Games, he and Paula still might not have a future together, not while there was any possibility of her ending up in the arena.
Especially when Dyson's victory, if it happened, could increase Paula's chances of being reaped, not to mention that his own sister, Tia, would also be subject to the same risk. No-one of reaping age, unless they had already won the Games, was safe from having their name drawn from the reaping bowls, but there were rumours that the Capitol sometimes rigged the reapings to make sure those close to the victors became tributes themselves. Trent didn't know if there was any truth to these rumours, but given that the Capitol had such a callous disregard for the lives of the people in the districts, there was no telling what they were capable of doing. After all, they continued to punish the districts for a rebellion which had happened decades ago by condemning twenty-three young people to death every year. And there was every probability that this would continue for decades to come.
"Is there anything you would like to say to Dyson if he could hear you now?"
"Yes," Trent replied, relieved that Plato had steered the interview away from Dyson's relationship with Paula. "Dyson, everyone in 5 is rooting for you. So keep going and we'll be seeing you back here someday."
For only the third time in the history of the Hunger Games, both tributes from District 9 had reached the last eight. The last time this had happened, at the Forty-fourth Games, their female tribute, Ruth, had gone on to win and was currently in the Capitol, acting as Valerie's mentor. Back in 9, a reporter named Sabrina, whose hair was a mass of teal ringlets, her lips painted to match, was interviewing Edie Lipton, the six-year-old daughter of Valerie's older sister, Daphne. With her light brown pigtails and her gap-toothed smile, Edie would prove to be one of the highlights of the interviews, answering Sabrina's questions with the frank innocence typical of a young child, clutching a rag-doll throughout.
"And were you sad when Valerie went away?" asked Sabrina.
Edie paused before answering. "Yes, but she told me not to worry because she was coming back one day. She gave me this," she added, holding up her doll. "She was hers when she was little, so she said I was to look after her for her until she comes home." Edie was only just beginning to grasp what the Hunger Games were, but she didn't know much beyond the fact that everyone in District 9 hated them. She didn't understand that Valerie had given her childhood doll to her because she knew it was unlikely she would be coming back alive; to her mind, she was simply looking after the toy until its rightful owner returned.
Sabrina couldn't help comparing the faded lump of cloth with one eye missing which Edie held to the expensive dolls owned by her own little girl back in the Capitol, though she avoided mentioning this out loud. "And does she have a name?" she asked instead.
"Barley."
Sabrina smiled, showing teeth so perfectly aligned that they could only be the work of a Capitol dentist. "Well, you look after Barley and I'm sure Valerie will be happy with you when she comes back from the Games."
Of course, when Valerie returned to District 9, she would probably be lying lifeless in a wooden box. That was how all but four of the grain district's previous tributes had come home.
"So how would you describe Glean?"
Amadeus, a Capitol reporter who wore his hair in multi-coloured dreadlocks, was interviewing Farro Bellingham, Glean's eleven-year-old brother. One year away from his own first reaping, Farro was all too aware that Glean, at fourteen the youngest tribute in the final eight, was almost certainly living on borrowed time, but he tried not to think about that and concentrated on answering the questions Amadeus put to him. "Well, he likes to show off and he's a fast runner. He won the boys' race at school last year."
"The boys' race?"
Farro nodded. "See, we have these races, one for the boys and one for the girls, and whoever wins gets a medal with three ears of wheat on it. Glean took his to the Capitol with him; he said it would bring him luck in the arena."
"And do you think it has brought him luck?" asked Amadeus, privately thinking that what Farro had said was just another silly district superstition. Did Glean really think carrying a piece of metal around with him was going to influence his chances in the Games? Surely it was your ability to attract sponsors, your survival skills and your talent for fighting that were the deciding factors when it came to whether or not you got out of the arena alive. On the other hand, if he was as good a runner as Farro said he was, he might just have the edge over his remaining opponents. Might being the operative word; the odds of there being another fourteen-year-old victor only a few years after Finnick Odair took the crown were slim. And, unlike Finnick, Glean did not have the advantage of being from a Career district.
"Well, he's still alive," Farro replied. "So he's not out of the Games yet."
All the same, he knew Glean was unlikely to last much longer, even with his talent for running. His brother had outlived sixteen tributes, including two of the Careers, but things were only going to get tougher from now on, especially with four Careers still in the running. Sooner or later, Glean's luck was bound to run out and that meant Farro would lose the brother he had looked up to for eleven years.
Put simply, the odds were not in Glean's favour.
